Alphabet : Google Pays More Than $1 Billion to Settle French Tax Cases

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09/12/2019 | 11:20am EDT

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By Sam Schechner

PARIS--Google is set to pay more than $1 billion in fines and back taxes to settle a pair of tax disputes in France, where it has faced years of investigations into whether it has properly declared all of its activity in the country.

The Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) subsidiary said Thursday that a court has approved a EUR500 million ($553 million) fine it had agreed to in a settlement of a tax-related probe with France's financial prosecutor. The prosecutor has since 2015 been investigating Google for aggravated tax evasion.

In addition, Google said Thursday that it had earlier agreed to pay EUR465 million in back taxes to France's tax authority, which had for years argued that Google was underpaying its taxes.

The tax authority had earlier issued Google a EUR1.11 billion tax bill for the years from 2005 to 2010, but Google appealed and in 2017 a French court threw the bill out.

"We have now settled tax and related disputes in France that have persisted for many years," a Google spokesman said, adding that prior settlement with the French tax authority was already "substantially reflected" in Alphabet's prior financial results.